


all this weight you've been carrying

by sufferingtime



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, Father-Son Relationship, Fix-It of Sorts, Hannibal is a Cannibal, Hannibal/Will if you squint real hard, Molly is the peace and quiet Will needs, Picks up from the middle of 3.08, Suicidal Thoughts, Will Graham Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-22 22:36:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12492344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sufferingtime/pseuds/sufferingtime
Summary: Hannibal gives himself up and is sentenced to life in prison.  Will has to learn how to move on.  He chooses to do so in a new state, with a new family, his seven dogs, and the scraps of himself left over from everything that's happened.Note:  Not Hannigram; while I love that pairing, I really wanted to write a (semi-realistic) happy recovery fic for Will.  Although "happy" is a strong word when it comes to Will Graham.





	all this weight you've been carrying

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Waste" by Brand New:
> 
>  
> 
> _I'm hoping that in time, you can lay down_  
>  _All this weight you've been carrying around_  
>  _And maybe one day_  
>  _You'll find your way_  
>  _To climb on up out of your grave_  
>  _With the bits of you you managed to save._
> 
> \--------
> 
> Disclaimer: I know very little about Vermont, prison systems, and legal trials. Hopefully that didn't ruin the reading experience for anyone.

Bennington College offered him the job three months after Hannibal’s arrest. Three months of drifting, lost, knowing that technically, he’d won, but somehow still unable to feel safe. He’d never get back his old life. So when he was offered a new one, he took it.

Moving was the easy part. All told, Will had very few belongings he actually needed, and he shed many of his possessions like dead weight, leaving them behind with the rest of his past. He swapped out his car for a truck with snow tires, and, accompanied by his seven dogs riding in the back, he drove north for the last time.

He traveled up the coastline, watching the sun rise, move across the sky, and begin to set. As they crossed the state line into Vermont, Winston hopped into the front seat to watch the road pass. He looked at Will and whined. Will rubbed behind his ears. “You’ll like it,” he assured him. “I found us a great place. Lots of space for you guys, a warm house, and best of all, no serial killers.” He found his mouth twitching at his own wry humor. “We deserve a break, huh, Winston?”

They got to the house just after dark. The dogs were excited to be out of the car, and overwhelmed with all the new scents and sights. The muddy Vermont spring had just melted down all the snow, and the freshly uncovered earth felt perfect for the new start Will so desperately needed. He unlocked the door to the house, noticing that the heat hadn’t been turned on yet. He pulled his coat closer around himself and walked from room to room, taking in the silence and inhaling the deep woodsy smell.

He could make a home out of this.

\-------

The process of forgetting was a long one. Sometimes it felt like his old life had been one long nightmare. The horrifying murders, the hallucinations, the people he’d lost, the things he’d done — all of it seemed so far away, so surreal. But when he undressed for the night, his fingers would brush bullet holes, stab wounds, burns, scrapes, and healed bones, and each scar woke something deep inside, something he’d rather never think about again.

The practicalities of his new life helped. His teaching position gave him a regular schedule, and he managed to make a few acquaintances and casual friends. It was a relief to give lectures on murders instead of being at crime scenes, coming face to face with the bodies, inhaling the scent of their blood. He liked knowing what the slides held. He liked being able to research the crimes instead of experiencing each brutal detail up close and personal. He liked explaining motive through facts and case reports, instead of through his own intimate knowledge of the cases. The students were good kids, but he knew they were all wary of him; after all, he carried quite the reputation into the classroom with him.

He thought about therapy. It was a very brief thought. He supposed he couldn’t possibly have a worse experience than he’d already had, but he didn’t see the need to tempt fate.

\-------

He met Molly at the university. It was "bring your kid to work" day, and Will had spent the better part of the morning avoiding toddlers being carted around by his fellow staff members. It wasn’t that he didn’t like children, but he found that not many of them reacted well to his awkward, quiet demeanor. So when he felt a tug on his pant leg and looked down, he didn’t expect to see the young face staring back up at him. “Excuse me, have you seen my mom?” the boy asked, timid but polite. Will couldn’t help but smile. The kid reminded him of himself at that age; dark hair, pale, a little skinnier than was healthy, and more serious than anyone that age had a right to be.

He crouched down. “I don’t know. Is she a professor?”

He nodded. “She teaches chemistry. She’s very smart,” he added, pride in his voice.

Will laughed. “I bet she is. Let’s go see if we can find her.”

“My name’s Wally,” the boy volunteered, trailing behind Will. “I’m here a lot. My mom lives alone with me, and when I don’t have school sometimes I come to work with her.”

“She sounds like a great mom.” As they walked, he found himself the target of Wally’s endless curious questions. What did he teach? Did it scare him to see dead people? Had he ever killed anyone? What were all the scars on his face from? The shameless interrogation coming from anyone else might have made Will nervous, but he didn’t mind answering a child’s questions. They came from a place of pure curiosity, and they weren’t sugarcoated. Will liked that.

“Wally!” A redheaded woman stepped out of an office when she saw them coming. “I told you to wait for me at the front desk.”

“I went to get a drink and couldn’t find my way back.” Wally looked up at Will. “Professor Graham helped me find you.”

Will grinned. “Only my students have to call me ‘Professor’,” he said. “You get to call me Will.”

Wally took this as a particularly high honor. “Okay, then. Will,” he said, his face drawn seriously.

Molly laughed. “Well, thank you, Will. God knows where he’d have ended up if you hadn’t found him.”

“No problem.” Will turned to leave, waving to them both. He’d see a lot more of Molly in the halls, now that he’d been introduced. She’d tell him about how Wally asked for him from time to time, which pleased Will. A few weeks after they met, he babysat for her for a weekend while she went to a seminar. Those few days cemented their connection through Wally, who was enthralled by Will’s sprawling property, his family of dogs, his log cabin, and his ice fishing. For his part, Will didn’t mind having a little responsibility for a few days. It did ache to watch Wally play with the dogs, or reel in his first fish, and think of Abigail. He couldn’t help but wish she could be there with him, finding her own peace with him as he built the foundations of a better life.

\-------

There were setbacks. Usually they were news stories. The week of Hannibal’s trial was the worst week Will had known in a full year. He’d never been much of a drinker, but he took that week off from teaching and stayed at home, knocking back scotches whenever he began to think too coherently. He was holding onto the small comfort that he didn’t have to be there in person, due to the plea of guilty by reason of insanity that meant Hannibal needed very few witnesses to confirm what he confessed to. He avoided the news, but it was hard; sometimes he couldn’t help but break down and read through the outpouring of hatred in the media, all of it directed at the Chesapeake Ripper. Upsetting though it was to watch the world relive his past, that wasn't what got to him. What disturbed him was his own anger — anger at the public. They didn’t know. They looked at Hannibal and saw a demented serial killer. They couldn’t see how twisted he was, how deep his corruption went. Worst of all, they couldn’t see that core trait, that one thing that made it all make sense: they couldn’t see the beauty in it. However awful Hannibal’s actions had been, they’d always been artful, always transcendent. Will couldn’t explain why he hated seeing the crimes broken down to mere murders. Perhaps he couldn’t stand watching everything he’d been through boiled down to a garden variety horror story, when it had been so much more. Perhaps just the tiniest part of him still held that unwilling loyalty to the man who’d taken everything from him. He’d give anything to obliterate any connection he’d ever had to Hannibal, if only to take away those feelings, the uncertainty of where his opinions lay, and the fear of finding out.

The day of the sentencing, Will watched the live broadcast. Despite everything, Hannibal looked composed. As he was read his sentence of life in jail with no chance of parole, his face was calm, level. He was in charge, as he always was. He’d chosen this path for himself, and to him, that meant he still held the power. For a moment, as he was lead away, his eyes caught the camera. That familiar gaze made Will shudder. There was a knowing look, as if Hannibal was searching for him. As if he knew he’d be watching, and he wanted to see him one last time. Will hurled the remote at the TV and the screen cracked and went black. He finished the last of the scotch in a few gulps. A pounding headache formed behind his eyes, and he went to his cupboard to fish out a half-full bottle of extra strength Tylenol. The first two were to help the pain. He wasn’t sure what the next twenty were for. When he woke up eighteen hours later, vomiting up his stomach lining and too weak to stand, he still didn’t really know. He wasn’t sure he ever would.

\-------

“Will, it’s good to hear from you.”

Will leaned back against the headboard of his bed and smiled. The one person from his past that he didn’t want to let go of was the only person he contacted on a semi-regular basis. Alana had come up to visit once or twice, bringing Margo the second time. Once she got pregnant, it was harder for her to make the eight hour drive, but they talked on the phone a couple times a month. “Hi, Alana. How are things in Virginia?”

“About as good as they can be when you’re seven months pregnant with twins who won’t let you get more than thirty feet from a bathroom. I don’t know is worse, the nausea or the tiny bladder.” She laughed. “Sorry. You don’t want to hear about that.”

“Yeah, I’ll pass on news about your bodily functions.” He toed off his boots and lined them up on the floor. “How’s Margo?”

Alana hesitated for a brief moment. “Good. Nervous.”

“About the twins?”

“She’s still adjusting to it all. Her brother being who he was… well, I can’t say I blame her for worrying about what kind of genetic traits these two will have.”

“But you’re not worried?”

“I’m going to love these babies, and bring them up to be good kids. Beyond that, it’s out of my control. I can’t solve the nature versus nurture debate, but I can be a good parent and give the twins the best possible shot.” She sounded confident. “Besides, as I keep telling Margo, the Verger DNA can’t be all bad. It made her.”

“That’s a good point. It’s good that she’s got you. I can’t imagine a better person to have during a stressful time.”

“What about you, Will? How are you?”

That was a difficult question to answer. He thought about the nightmares, vivid as real life, down to the last detail. He thought about last week, when a student had asked him about his work on the Minnesota Shrike case, and he’d frozen up and had to dismiss class early so he could sit in the staff men’s room and fend off old memories and the panic they brought with them. He thought about his weekends, his days off, when it was just him and snowy land, where he sometimes never moved from bed, either absolutely drained by the sheer effort of being awake, or filled to the brim with a heavy misery that kept him pinned down as much as any physical weight. He thought about the cliff at the edge of his property, where he’d sometimes sit for hours, snow soaking into his clothes, his whole body shivering, his legs dangling over the black precipice.

But he could also call to mind the easy mornings, when the sun managed to get through the clouds and made the snowy woods look golden and mesmerizing. When all his dogs piled onto the bed, and circled him in a joyous, barking mass when he got up to feed them. Days when he had a few hours before work, and spent them chopping wood, the simple exercise making him feel calm and resilient. When he didn’t think about Hannibal, or Hobbs, or Gideon, or any of the countless bodies. The times he got to see Molly and her son, and the holidays they invited him along to, or their trips into town. The feeling that he could settle down and trust where he was.

“I’m okay,” he said simply.

Alana understood. “Did you catch any of the trial a few months back?”

He gritted his teeth at the memory. “A bit of it.”

There was a long silence, and then Alana spoke again, this time in a very low voice, almost shameful. “Do you ever…” She seemed to struggle with the words.

Will spoke them for her. “Miss him?” Her deep inhale said enough. “I don’t think that’s wrong. The things he did to us… they’ll always stay with us. But at the same time, he wasn’t always the villain. He was kind and caring when he wanted to be. He loved you.” He’d loved them both. Will knew it, but he couldn’t take that truth right now. Maybe he’d never find a way to accept that.

“It’s so sick,” Alana sighed. “So damn awful that he could just get to me — to us — like that. I mean, God, who actually misses their relationship with a psychopath?”

“It’s only one part of you.” Will tipped his head back. “We’re both bigger than what he did to us. We exist outside how he wanted us to think and feel.”

Alana laughed, a little shaky. “Has anyone ever told you that you’d make a good psychologist?”

He laughed too. “Doesn’t seem like a desirable career path to me, all things considered.”

“God, Will. Do you ever wonder how we wound up in the middle of all this?”

Only every day, he thought. “We’re not in the middle of it anymore,” he reminded her. “It’s in the past.” He let his gaze drift out the window, to where the sunset was casting colors across the tops of the trees. It _was_ all in the past now, and with any luck, it would stay there.

\-------

“Molly,” Will called, catching sight of her hair bouncing ahead of him in the hallway. She turned, and the smile that lit up her face made his stomach squeeze. He felt like he was in high school, chasing his crush down the hallway to ask her out.

“Hey, _Professor_ Graham,” she said teasingly. “Cute sweater vest.”

He laughed. “You mock me, but this vest kept me warm for three consecutive lectures in the main hall. Do you know they keep the thermostat at sixty-five throughout the entire winter?”

She shook her head. “Those bastards.”

“How was the speech you gave?” he asked, walking with her to her next class.

“Pointless. I’m pretty sure not a single one of the suits in the room cared, or even comprehended, what I was talking about. They let me advocate because it would look bad if they refused to hear me out, but God forbid they actually listen to what I have to say.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

She shrugged. “Oh well. I suppose the chemistry department will keep the same outdated curriculum until long after I’m dead and gone. Maybe they’ll bury it with me.”

“I won’t let them,” he promised. They neared the entrance of the hall, and Molly paused and waited for him to say goodbye. He hesitated. “What would you say if I asked you to come to dinner with me this weekend?”

That irresistible smile of hers lit up her face. “I’d say that I’d better find a babysitter who isn’t you.”

\-------

He had a pleasant day, long but satisfying. It had been an exam day, which meant there was little pressure on him, but also very little for him to do, and he was happy to pull up to his house at the end of the work day. His dogs heard him coming and greeted him with a chorus of barks and furiously wagging tails. He distributed food, and took the opportunity to start a fire in the fireplace while they were distracted at their bowls. He kicked off his shoes, kept his flannel, and swapped his slacks for sweatpants. Dinner was stir fry, which he took the time to prepare from scratch, something he rarely did. He took no particular pleasure in cooking, but the home cooked food, warm fire, and pile of sleepy dogs made for a very comfortable evening.

His phone rang. He reached for it and pulled it off its charger, checking the number that was displayed across his screen. His caller ID didn’t recognize it, but placed its location in Baltimore. Will set his fork down, staring at the screen, letting it ring over and over. He wanted to let it go to voicemail, but instead, without consciously deciding to, he accepted the call.

“You are receiving a call from the MD Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. An inmate from our facility is attempting to contact you. To accept the call, press one. Standard data rates may apply.” The pre-recorded message ended. After a few moments, it repeated itself. Will’s fingers had gone numb. He had dreaded this happening. He’d found a way to trivialize Hannibal in his mind, to convince himself that he was safe from him, that he’d put enough distance and time between them that he’d never have to worry about him again. But now he had to make a decision. He could end the call and forget it ever happened.

He accepted the call.

“Will.” The accent was exactly as it was in Will’s nightmares, perfectly preserved in his memory. “I didn’t think you would answer.”

“Why did you call?” Will ground the words out.

“You don’t think we have unfinished business to resolve?”

“We don’t have any damn business. I told you goodbye. I let you go. I got my closure. What you did after that was your prerogative.”

“I saved your life.”

A sickening, red-hot surge of anger overtook Will, making it impossible for him to speak. For a moment he wondered if he’d vomit. “You tried to kill me.”

“As you did to me.”

“I don’t want to hear your fucking rationalizations,” he snarled. “I don’t want to hear you tell me I owe you. Everything that’s happened has been because of you. You should be proud — isn’t that what you wanted? To manipulate us?”

“Never like this, Will.” There was a hint of real sadness in his voice, and the rage it provoked in Will was blinding.

“I’m changing my number. I’m going to tell Alana to change hers. You will never contact us again.”

“Will.”

“We’re free of you. You can’t play your fucking mind games anymore.” Will pulled the phone away from his ear to hang up, but his hands were shaking too badly to find the button on the first try.

“Will.” Hannibal’s voice, faint, but sincere. Will hated that he hesitated. Hated that some deeply rooted instinct, some self-destructive impulse told him to listen. Told him to say one last thing.

“Goodbye, Hannibal,” he said. Quiet. Calm. Final.

The silence stretched on. And then, “Goodbye, Will.”

\-------

On their third date, Molly got horrible food poisoning from the seafood restaurant they went to. Partially guilty and partially afraid he was the next victim, Will took the day off work to stay with her. He saw Wally off to school while his mother laid curled up in the fetal position in the bathroom.

“Kill me,” Molly moaned when he came back to her. “Mercy kill. Assisted suicide. Or straight up homicide. I don't care.”

He chuckled. “No can do. If you die and I go to jail, who will look after my dogs?”

She was too sick to pull off an offended look. “I guess we aren’t worried about Wally.”

“He’s a smart kid, he’d be fine.” He sat beside her and rubbed her back slowly. “Can you sit up?” She eased herself upright, leaning against the bathroom wall. He handed her a glass of water, and she made a face at it. “You have to stay hydrated. Trust me, you’d rather not end up in the ER getting IV fluids because you refused a drink.”

“I wouldn’t refuse it if it was bourbon.” She sipped at the water. He kept rubbing her back, patiently waiting for her to make her way through the whole glass. She finished it, pinched her eyes shut, and a moment later gagged over the toilet. Will winced and held her hair back. “Damn it,” she sighed, spitting the taste out of her mouth.

“We’ll try again later.” He helped her up so she could brush her teeth.

“I’m guessing our relationship has a pretty dire prognosis,” she said, the humor disguising just a hint of real worry. “Nothing quite like watching your girlfriend puke to put a damper on a young relationship.”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m offended. You really think I’m that much of a quitter?”

She gave him a small, grateful look. “Well, at any rate, I’m going to owe you big time after this.”

“I don’t know, I’m the one who suggested the restaurant.”

“True. Maybe you’re the one who should be doing penance.”

“If penance is getting too sick to get off the bathroom floor, then I think I’ll just go ahead and let you take that bullet.”

She swatted at him. “Asshole.”

\-------

Student relationships became one of the most rewarding things about Will’s job. He hadn’t seen it coming; at his old job, he’d done his best to keep his head down and refrain from unnecessary contact. But with the overwhelming amount of publicity surrounding him, and with Freddie Lounds’ stories making still making the rounds, it was impossible to avoid the pseudo celebrity status he’d stumbled into. To his surprise, he found that in place of the morbid curiosity he was expecting, there was a majority of support and admiration. He had more than one student come to him to tell him he was their hero. This threw him for such a loop that he invariably just stammered and found an excuse to hurry away. But as time progressed, he learned how to handle it. How to deftly steer the conversation away from him, keep it general, maintain the respect of his students and move on.

One day in class, he was working his way through a particularly dry lecture on arterial spray, and he could feel his audience’s attention spans waning. He ended early and opened up the last ten minutes to questions. When he pointed to the man with his hand raised, he expected a question about splatter patterns, but instead, the student asked, “Is it true you brought down Hannibal the Cannibal?”

The whole room went silent. The few students packing their bags ceased movement. Every eye was trained on Will, and for a moment, he felt the panic rise. He couldn’t do this.

The moment stretched on. Will took deep, careful breaths, and heard murmuring start to sweep through the room. He couldn’t let this happen again. He couldn’t keep folding under the slightest pressure. These were questions that would stay with him forever, and he had to learn how to answer them. The only way he could really let all of this go was to accept that it had happened, accept that it was his to deal with, and not give it the ability to shut him down. “I was… a factor in his capture, yes.”

Conversations sparked around the room, and then died down as someone else raised their hand. “Sir, if you don’t mind — how did you do it?”

Will chose his words carefully, slowly piecing them together. “There’s something that everyone wants. If you can find what that is, you can exploit it. In the case of Hannibal Lecter, I didn’t find that thing, and I didn’t exploit it. I _was_ it.”

The same student spoke again. “You were his friend?”

Will startled himself by laughing briefly. “Would I call myself friends with a cannibalistic serial killer? I should hope not.” A wave of uncertain laughter followed this comment. He surveyed the room. How could he explain it to them, so young and optimistic? How could he describe the hold that Hannibal had had over him, and vice versa? How could anyone understand, unless they’d gone through it? “In the process of my… investigation, I grew close to Dr. Lecter out of necessity, in order to push the search forward. I knew him as a person before I knew... what he was. We caused each other too much harm to avoid leaving marks. And in the end, the marks I left on him changed him just enough.” Just enough that he gave in, Will wanted to say, but that wasn’t true. Hannibal had never given in. In his own way, he’d won, but it was undeniably not the victory he’d had planned. That much, Will had been able to change.

“So what marks did he leave on you?” another student asked.

Will didn’t want to delve into the topic so deeply just yet. This wasn’t information that belonged to this room of near strangers. He brushed off the comment. “If you’re worried I’m going to start picking you off and cooking you into my lunches, don’t worry, he didn’t get to me that much.” Another wave of half-uneasy laughter. He dismissed the class and began to straighten the papers on his desk. When he turned around, he found that nearly half the class had come down to ask him questions. After that, his office hours were always packed. He made a valiant effort to keep things academic, but he knew their interest was in him, not his teaching, so he learned how to give them surface level information to pick apart and mull over. He gave them just enough to fascinate them, but kept them well away from the worst parts of the world he was still trying to untangle himself from.

\-------

Molly slept over for the first time after they’d been dating for two months. It was difficult to find time alone, with Wally too young to be left home alone, but finally they were given a night to themselves in the form of a sleepover invitation from a friend of Wally’s. There was no pretense about how they wanted to spend the night; they dropped Wally off and drove straight to Will’s house. Their rambunctious conversation was cut off at the door, as Molly snuck a kiss from Will as he fumbled with his keys. He returned the kiss, forgetting for a moment that it was sixteen degrees outside as he savored the feeling of her lips, her eyelashes fluttering against his cheek, her gloved hands pressed to his back. It took a full five minutes for Will to focus enough to unlock the door. They left their coats on the floor, and Will shut the dogs out of the bedroom.

She was undeniably beautiful, and to him, she was flawless. Her smooth skin felt like satin under his hands, not a single scar to mar the perfection. She was curvy, full and soft and warm, and she moved with passion. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, and she flushed at his intense focus. Her hands brushed down his back, running over thick, gnarled scars and old wounds. Her brows furrowed a little. He kissed the wrinkle that formed on her forehead, and she gave up worrying, gave up thinking about anything but the two of them together.

Afterwards, she asked. “Where’d you get all these?” She was lying on her side, facing him, and her fingers reaching over to trace over his skin. The bullet holes in his shoulder. The wide gash on his stomach. The horizontal scar across his forehead.

He kept his eyes on the ceiling. “Working for the FBI comes with risks.”

“Apparently.” Molly dropped her hand. She knew as much as everyone else knew — that Will had been involved in the case of the century; more than that, he’d been at the very heart of it. She knew a little better than anyone else. He could let his guard down around her, let her see some of the heaviness when it overtook him. “Will you ever tell me about it?”

He considered this. “I’d tell you anything you asked me.”

“I don’t know what I’d ask.”

He nodded. “I don’t really know what I’d tell you.”

\-------

It was one of his difficult mornings. A warm Sunday morning, the kind of neutral weekend day when he couldn’t really feel the passage of time, and he hung in a limbo until he was required to do something. He got up to let his dogs out, and the brisk air felt good enough that he decided to grab a jacket and take a walk. Some of his dogs trailed along behind him, but one by one they were distracted by woodland creatures or interesting smells, and soon he was alone.

He always found the blanket silence of the forest comforting. He had this little piece of nature to himself. The outside world couldn’t find him here. It could be equally as dangerous as it was comforting; being alone was often a bad idea for Will.

He wandered without a real destination, but his feet took him on a familiar path that he hadn’t been down in a while. A tree had fallen over the narrow footpath, and he made a mental note to break it down tonight and use it for firewood. The further he pressed on, the more caught up in his thoughts he found himself getting. Finally, the trees thinned, and the peat ground gave way to rock. He stood atop the cliff, taking in the view he was so used to. He looked over the edge as he always did, down the fifty foot drop, to the craggy little ravine that no longer held water. The number of times he’d pictured himself, broken into pieces on those rocks, mutilated like the corpses he’d seen hauled off to the morgue, was staggering. There was a time when it was easy to convince himself he was well past the point of recovery. That some types of broken just couldn’t be fixed. He stood at the very edge of the cliff, letting the wind gently sway him forward.

Footsteps marched through the underbrush behind him. He stepped back and turned. “Will,” an excited voice called out, too eager to wait until they could see each other. Will smiled at the sight of Wally in his rain boots, cracking twigs and shoving bushes out of his way. “Mom says we can go to the drive-in theater, but we have to hurry or we’ll miss the beginning of the movie.”

“Then we better get going.” Will grinned at Molly as she fought her way through the weeds to join them. Molly was less of an outdoor person than her son and boyfriend, and only ventured into the little wooded area when she had to. Molly’s eyes took in Will, and then their clifftop surroundings. She always knew when he had more on his mind than he was letting on, and her narrowed eyes searched his.

“Come _on_ ,” Wally groaned, taking Will’s hand and dragging him forward, breaking the eye contact between him and Molly. “They’re showing Star Wars tonight. All three of the originals. All in a row.”

Will whistled. “That’s gotta be, what, nine hours?”

“Yeah!” The idea seemed to excite Wally further.

“I told him we’ll stay for one,” Molly called from behind them.

“We’re negotiating,” Wally informed him importantly.

“Right. Something tells me you’re not going to win that one.” He lifted Wally over the log in the path. “Go ahead, go call the dogs in so we can get ready to go.” Wally dashed ahead, leaving Will and Molly to navigate the path in a more controlled manner.

Molly hooked her hand around his elbow. “Will?”

He knew what she was going to ask. He turned and kissed the top of her head. “You have nothing to worry about.”

“It’s just hard… you’ve been through so much, and I still know so little about that.” Her eyes were still anxious. “You know it would absolutely crush me if you — if anything happened to you. It would kill Wally.”

He stopped, turned around so he could face her. “I’m not going anywhere, Molly.” He could say that with a confidence he'd never had before. His conviction must have been enough to sooth her, because she nodded and leaned up for a kiss. They continued through the woods, silent except for the two sets of footsteps walking together down the path.

\-------

The worst of his nightmares always featured the presence of the wendigo. Tonight, it stood behind him as he murdered a young girl. No more than sixteen, the girl’s face was horror-struck, and her body writhed as she fought against him. He squeezed, harder and harder, his heartbeat jumping, the heady rush of killing sweeping him away. He wanted to hurt her, wanted to squeeze harder, wanted to twist her neck and wring it until it popped off. The stag horns of the wendigo scraped into his back. The girl’s eyes were bulging, and beads of blood were forming at the corners. Blood rolled from her nose, her ears, left perfect lines of red down her cheeks and into her pretty blonde hair. He wanted to bite her, rip her flesh away, use every last bit of strength to see what he could do to her. He leaned closer and bared his teeth, and the hands of the wendigo wrapped around his shoulders.

“Will!” Molly’s voice just barely reached him. He was awake, but the fury that didn’t belong to him was still coursing through his body. He couldn’t breathe. “Will, baby. What’s wrong? You were yelling — ”

“Help,” he choked. He could see him behind her. The wendigo. _Him._ “He’s — right there — ”

Terrified, Molly leapt out of bed and turned on the light. She did a brief sweep of the room. “Baby, there’s no one there. What’s going on?” He choked, desperate for air he couldn’t get into his lungs. She sat down and pulled him into her arms, resting her head on his and keeping him there. He sank into the warmth of her body, grounding himself with her, gradually finding his way back to the present.

“Sorry,” he muttered, when he could speak.

“Don’t be sorry.” She pulled back enough to look at him. “Nightmare?”

“Yeah.”

“Are they always that bad?”

He tried to shrug it off. “I don’t have many like that anymore.”

Her brown eyes were full of unhappiness, her brows pushed together in a worried line. “Will Graham,” she sighed. “What are we going to do with you?”

He gave her a halfhearted smile. “If I have any say in the matter, I’d vote that we go back to bed and forget this happened.”

She clearly wasn’t ready to let it go, but she stood and dropped a kiss on his forehead. She turned out the light and slid back into bed, waiting for him to lie down so she could arrange herself around him. She rested her hand on the back of his head and ran her fingers from the nape of his neck to the top of his forehead, sifting through his hair in a slow, soothing motion. His heart rate steadied under the touch, and as she hummed softly, he felt himself drifting gradually back to sleep. He heard her voice, so low that he wasn’t sure the words were meant for him. “You're okay,” she whispered. “I’ve got you.”

\-------

Will proposed on their second anniversary. He had it planned out perfectly. He’d reserved a table at the restaurant they’d had their first dinner at, arranged for a waiter to film it for them, picked the ring, worded his speech carefully, and dressed in his nicest suit and tie. Unfortunately, the Vermont weather had other ideas.

Their car got stuck barely half a mile out from his house. Below zero temperatures, combined with a driving snowstorm, make driving conditions bad enough that Molly repeatedly tried to convince him to just stay in for the night. He overruled her, determined to have their perfect evening, but they never made it onto the highway before they drifted into a snowbank and found themselves stranded.

“Let’s just walk back,” Molly said, rubbing Will’s shoulder as he stared out the windshield. “I told you, I don’t mind rescheduling. It’s just a dinner date.”

He conceded, and they grabbed their heavy winter coats and the fishing boots Will kept in the trunk. They made a very odd pair indeed, fighting their way through the snow in formal wear half-covered by mismatched puffer coats and Wellington boots. They made it most of the way home, their noses and ears bright red, unable to talk over the roaring of the wind. Molly tripped on something buried deep under the snow, and as Will reached down to help her up, the small velvet box dropped out of his suit jacket pocket and onto the snow. Molly’s eyes followed it, and Will watched her connect the dots.

He made the split-second decision to make the best of a ruined evening. He pulled off his gloves and reached his bare hand into the snow, digging out the little box and dusting it off. As Molly watched with wide eyes, he knelt in front of her and opened the box. The speech he had prepared was carried off by the wind, and neither of them heard a word the other said. Later, Molly would tell him that all she could manage to say was “oh my God”, “yes”, and “oh my God yes”. She would also blame him for the tears that froze to her face and gave her a minor case of frostbite. For his part, Will had ruined his suit beyond repair, and to some extent his dignity as well. But as he told her, he’d never been so happy to be humiliated, freezing, and soaking wet.

\-------

Vermont summers were Will’s favorite time of the year. He woke early to the first streaks of a pink sunset warming the sky. For a few minutes he savored the comfort of his warm bed, Molly asleep beside him on her stomach, her red hair strewn across her upper arms and the smattering of freckles across her nose especially enchanting in the predawn light. He slipped out of bed, put on sweatpants and a t-shirt, and placed a kiss on Molly’s forehead as he passed her side of the bed. She stirred but didn’t wake, instead rolling into the warm spot he’d left behind.

He made coffee and fed the dogs, rubbing each one behind the ears and hushing them so they wouldn’t wake the household. He added cream and sugar to his mug — or, as Molly called it, “ruined a perfectly good coffee” — and pushed open the screen door to the balcony. It wasn’t often that he was awake early enough to really see the sunset, and even if he was he was generally too busy to care about it. But today, he was comfortable just sitting, watching the world wake up.

The screen door creaked. He turned to see Molly, her hair disheveled, wrapped in their thick goose down comforter. “You’re up early.”

He made room for her on the porch swing. “I like it out here when it’s still kind of dark. It’s beautiful.”

“You and your hard-on for nature.” He huffed a laugh. She leaned against him, her shoulder pressed to his through the blanket. She tipped her head and laid it on his shoulder, and he set his coffee down so he could put his arm around her. They stayed like that, until Molly’s eyes began to droop; she snuggled down a little closer and dozed off. Will toyed gently with the ends of her hair, not thinking about anything in particular. Not needing to. The sky turned from pinks to oranges to yellows, and finally, a bright blue morning sky dawned.


End file.
